It might be really easy to cut a cloak, but I imagine it's really hard to cut a magic cloak in a way that turns off it's magic. If you just cut the bottom of the cloak, why should that negate the effect? It's literally a magic size changing cloak, covering slightly less area probably isn't a big deal.

Also, be honest, have you ever swung a sword at cloth anything? You can move the cloth around, but actually cutting it is probably not in the cards. A Sunder attempt that does less than 40Hp of damage can just hit the cloak and smash it against your armor without severing it._________________

"DSMatticus" wrote:

Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.

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"FrankTrollman" wrote:

Really, the only thing the "my character can beat up your character" challenges ever do by presenting a clear and unambiguous beat down is to have the loser drop of the thread and pretend the challenge never happened.

"Frank Trollman" wrote:

But just because the character should have something defined into their play space that allows them to contribute to the situations that the game expects to demand of them, doesn't mean that those contributions should be exactly the same action every time. Indeed, at the point in which the other players can essentially memorize your character's actions and repeat them verbatim whether you're in the room or not - your design has failed.

It might be really easy to cut a cloak, but I imagine it's really hard to cut a magic cloak in a way that turns off it's magic. If you just cut the bottom of the cloak, why should that negate the effect? It's literally a magic size changing cloak, covering slightly less area probably isn't a big deal.

Also, be honest, have you ever swung a sword at cloth anything? You can move the cloth around, but actually cutting it is probably not in the cards. A Sunder attempt that does less than 40Hp of damage can just hit the cloak and smash it against your armor without severing it.

Yeah, I think I'm going to just treat the cloak as magic armor for HP/Hardness per point of bonus. Otherwise, the Nightwalker fight coming up is probably going to be deeply unfun for the players. It will have to Vital Strike for average 64 damage to break their good stuff instead of wrecking it with normal claw attacks.

It might be really easy to cut a cloak, but I imagine it's really hard to cut a magic cloak in a way that turns off it's magic. If you just cut the bottom of the cloak, why should that negate the effect? It's literally a magic size changing cloak, covering slightly less area probably isn't a big deal.

Also, be honest, have you ever swung a sword at cloth anything? You can move the cloth around, but actually cutting it is probably not in the cards. A Sunder attempt that does less than 40Hp of damage can just hit the cloak and smash it against your armor without severing it.

I couldn't agree more. Even with scissors meant to cut fabric, it's not like you can slash the blades against the cloth; and expect to cut a length off the bolt. Instead you have to align the edges; and cut along the thread, to get a clean cut. If you're looking at cutting anything thicker than one (maybe two) layer(s) of textiles, scissors won't be enough. The last time I was cutting a lot of fabric into 12" squares; I used a pair of compound snips (I think I was cutting about 10 layers at a time). It might not seem like much, but 10 layers of broadcloth being harder to cut through than most of the thinner grades of sheet metal was a bit surprising.

Magical items are also, often made of higher quality base materials (e.g. mwk weapons; armour). Finally, the crafting cost of items isn't necessarily equal to the costs of the spellcasting alone (based on PHB spellcasting costs); so that extra expense has to be going somewhere into the construction of the item.

Conversely; if one really is keen on breaking their treasure, it's not like it's difficult to have advantages when sundering items. At the very least, an adamantine item to overcome object hardness under 20. However, complaining that it's hard to break your potential treasure is an odd sentiment to understand._________________

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The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.

While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.

The FAQ on the mounted charge is pretty stupid as well => if your mount charges, the rider is charging too, so he can't spur his mount (wtf?!), use his bow, cast a spell, etc.

I miss why that's an issue. I am assuming that's because "how charging works in my head" and "how it actually works" probably are not the same, I was wondering if you could expand on that? Not challenging you, just curious._________________In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony godís blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.

The FAQ on the mounted charge is pretty stupid as well => if your mount charges, the rider is charging too, so he can't spur his mount (wtf?!), use his bow, cast a spell, etc.

I miss why that's an issue. I am assuming that's because "how charging works in my head" and "how it actually works" probably are not the same, I was wondering if you could expand on that? Not challenging you, just curious.

At the most basic level it means you can't use your Ride skill to improve your mount's movement while charging while mounted. Which means that a heavy investment in Ride is kind of useless for character who intend to do cavalry charges. That's pretty dumb. The Ride Skill shouldn't be a nonbo with Mounted Charges, because that's deeply counterintuitive.

For more fringe cases it means that you can't shoot arrows or throw javelins from the back of a charging elephant, which of course makes the Selucids sad. But it also means that a lot of the fantasy shit you'd like to do like Goblins on the top of Flail Snails or whatever are off the table.

But the real bottom line is that there's no positive benefit to this ruling. There's no out-of-genre trick they are destroying and several in-genre events they are disallowing for no reason.

But the real bottom line is that there's no positive benefit to this ruling.

I thought they were trying to rule out the possibility of having the rider charging while the mount is moving at a slow meander.

That's what was in my head, that it's not a "mounted charge" unless both rider and mount are charging, but if for some reason you just wanted your mount to charge the rider can shoot arrows, cast a spell, use the spur mount option (personal note: that looks like a mechanically terrible thing to do but it's reasonable that one should be able to do that during a charge), have the howdah full of goblins on the mastodon's back throw javelins and snakes and alchemist fire and feces at everything in the area while it barrels through everything, etc. But it seems that if your mount charges it locks the rider into the charge too. I'm guess that has something to do with the fact that the Pathfinder devs get their feelings hurt by numbers and logic._________________In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony godís blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.

Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:47 am; edited 1 time in total

Mounted combat FAQ is another bad knee jerk due to ragelancepounce_________________

Maxus wrote:

Being wrong is something that rightly should be celebrated, because now you have a chance to correct and then you'll be better than you were five minutes ago. Perfection is a hollow shell, but perfectibility is something that is to be treasured.

It doesn't look like it does a thing to pouncing. At all. It fucks you in weird ways if you and your mount have a different reach*, but if you're riding some sort of great cat or dinosaur with pounce and/or you can pounce, this 'both are charging' rule does jack to stop it.

*there is a wacky thread on the paizo boards on the reach issue, and the sane response in the thread is just don't use things as written, because otherwise the charging rules make you stop whenever the creature with the longer reach hits their melee range, and the other can't attack. Or, because its the paizo boards, the alternate suggestion is, of course, don't use lances on horseback, because obviously it's only a problem because the player mismatched their own reach and the mounts reach.

Last edited by Voss on Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

ok, I don't like ragelancepounce. At all. Not because "OMG ! overpowered !" bullshit, but because:
1. the full-attack on a mounted charge should not be limited to one class
2. I feel like using pounce while mounted is counter-intuitive
I prefer the previous ruling, which was saying "the mount charges, not you". It allowed anybody with the proper feat to full-attack during a mounted charge. More build variety is usually a good thing.

Of course, the prerequisites of mounted skirkmisher are absurd: the feat should be more accessible to any mounted character. But Pathfinder wouldn't be Pathfinder without game design issues...

The PF Devs seem to really hate it when anybody comes up with a combo that they didn't explicitly intend to be there.

This spell shatters balance into a million pieces? Oh, well, the GM can fix it. Or I guess we may get around to errata someday. These three feats let you take an extra 5' step, and that isn't a stated benefit for taking them? Code Red! To the errata-mobile!

Last edited by Ice9 on Tue Jan 31, 2017 7:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

This spell shatters balance into a million pieces? Oh, well, the GM can fix it. Or I guess we may get around to errata someday. These three feats let you take an extra 5' step, and that isn't a stated benefit for taking them? Code Red! To the errata-mobile!

I think that's mostly an extension of the fact that the designers actually know the core 3e combat game pretty well and have very little concept of how the magic system works.

So if you get a bigger bonus to hit or an extra five foot step or an extra opportunity attack or something, that will jump right out at them as a thing. But if you do a thing with spell combos, they will stare at you blankly because they have honestly no idea what the spells are doing. You might as well be talking in Mandarin Chinese when you tell them what your spell combo does.

Which is ironic of course because the Fighter activities they have trained themselves to accept are actually way below what the Wizards are doing and also completely pathetic compared to what team monster is getting up to.

On another note, I recently found the Disease and Poison rules from Pathfinder Unchained, and I kinda like them. Instead of messing with ability damage that is a pain to calculate at low levels until lesser restoration becomes available, at which point most poisons cease to have any real impact on gameplay, you have diseases and poison tracks (physical and mental for disease, and six ability tracks for poison). Healing is also harder to do than with the standard rules, so this looks pretty lethal at low levels and might even fvck with mid-level parties that are not sufficiently prepared. Any thoughts?

The HP damage on initial exposure and boost to neutralize poison are weird; at least so long as the victim doesn't reach the end state of a poison, where they become nearly impossible to restore. A friend of mine doesn't like the limited effect of multiple doses, which only increase the duration and not anything else._________________Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick

I think that's mostly an extension of the fact that the designers actually know the core 3e combat game pretty well

If they had mastered the core combat rules, they would never have published the current firearm combat rules.
The way they tried to balance the firearm rules with the core proves that they had no idea of what they were doing.

Firearms are just an example. Every rule they published after the CRB is made on the same model: exceptions to the CRB rules, exceptions inside the exceptions and a lot of micro-management.

I'm planning my next adventure, and it's been a while since the PCs competed in the arena. Conveniently, they've just reached level 7, so for most of the players a simple "here are your new combat abilities" adventure would be great.

Of course, this is Ptolus, not Ye Olde Regular Fantasy. So by "arena" I mean "fucking fantasy wrestling complete with costumes, kayfabe, luchadors and implausible plot twists". The PCs, among other things, are one of the face groups competing regularly in the arena (which is obviously enchanted so as not to kill the participants, of course)

My storyline is pretty simple. One of the party's (real) nemesis will show up, diss them in public, then challenge them for possession of their home base at the next Colosseumania. The arena promoters are going along with it because mysterious challenger, money, etc. Obviously, there's a dastardly plot involved that the PCs will have to solve.

But I need interesting opponents for the "backdrop" tournament to the investigation. The party is four level 7 characters, a bit light on arcane magic.

I already want to throw a metallic dragon at the PCs - any suggestions as to what would work best?

The PCs previously fought the Horde (a stupidly large pack of low-level halflings) and Big Bob (a frost giant) in the arena. Any ideas on how to use those guys for an encore even though they weren't really meaningful opponents the last time?

Any other too-dumb-to-try-in-another-context-but-still-awesome ideas?_________________My blog: vincentdehaut.com
Marvel as I slog through manuscript editing! Gape as I pointlessly query agents (when I get there, that is!)

You could throw a grapplemancer at them. I didn't get to play him much, but I did have a lot of fun with my equal-parts-Saitama-and-Professor-Farnsworth elven wizard with a +28 grapple check._________________

Dean, on Paranoia wrote:

The book is a hardbound liars paradox.

Winnah wrote:

No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

FrankTrollman wrote:

In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

The PCs previously fought the Horde (a stupidly large pack of low-level halflings) and Big Bob (a frost giant) in the arena. Any ideas on how to use those guys for an encore even though they weren't really meaningful opponents the last time?

Aren't you pretty much required to have Big Bob show up with a good number of the horde hanging from him in harnesses (probably armed with spears and crossbows)?

The PCs previously fought the Horde (a stupidly large pack of low-level halflings) and Big Bob (a frost giant) in the arena. Any ideas on how to use those guys for an encore even though they weren't really meaningful opponents the last time?

Aren't you pretty much required to have Big Bob show up with a good number of the horde hanging from him in harnesses (probably armed with spears and crossbows)?

Just don't make Big Bob charge._________________In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony godís blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.

Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.

K wrote:

That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.

Chamomile wrote:

See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.